don't git on
it!"

"Mother!" cried Esther, in a deep tone of remonstrance; but Portia was
unconscious of interruption. The other actors held their books in their
hands, and, for the most part, read their speeches; but Peggy trusted
entirely to memory, and sighed and yawned over the denunciation of her
lovers, with evident satisfaction to herself as well as to the
beholders. Nerissa read her part "conscientiously," as the newspapers
would say, punctuating her sentences in exemplary fashion, and laying
the emphasis upon the right words as directed by the stage manageress;
but, such is the contrariness of things, that, with all her efforts, the
effect was stiff and stifled, while Peggy drawled through her sentences,
or gabbled them over at break-neck speed, used no emphasis at all, or
half a dozen running, at her own sweet will, and was so truly Portia
that the vicar wondered dreamily if he should have to interview the Duke
of Morocco in his study, and Mrs Asplin sighed unconsciously, and told
herself that the child was too young to be troubled with lovers. She
must not dream of accepting any one of them for years to come!

At the end of the scene, however, anxiety about her beloved _portiere_
overpowered everything else in the mind of the vicar's wife, and she
rushed after the actors to call out eager instructions. "Hang it up at
once--there's good children. If you put it down on a chair, Peggy will
sit on it as sure as fate! And oh! my table centres! Put them back in
the drawer if you love me! Wrap them up in the tissue paper as you
found them!"

"Mother, you are a terrible person! Go back, there's a dear, and do
keep quiet!" cried a muffled voice from behind the dining-room door, as
Shylock dodged back to escape observation; and Mrs Asplin retreated
hastily, aghast at the sight of a hairy monster, in whom she failed to
recognise a trace of her beloved son and heir. Shylock's make-up was,
in truth, the triumph of the evening. The handsome lad had been
transformed into a bent, misshapen old man, and anything more ugly,
frowsy, and generally unattractive than he now appeared it would be
impossible to imagine. A cushion gave a hump to his shoulders, and over
this he wore an aged purple dressing-gown, which had once belonged to
the vicar. The dressing-gown was an obvious refuge; but who but Peggy
Saville would have thought of the trimming, which was the making of the
shaggy, unkempt look so much desired? Pe